What a Noise you? 7th Madison Regionals (72 players)

Decided to play pancake Noise and Jinteki: PE at the Madison Regional event on May 30 and placed 7th overall (5th or 6th seed after swiss).

Went 4-2 in Swiss and 0-2 in DE rounds.

The deck really hummed when I drew cards in the right order, but there were a couple games where I had to spend way too long digging for Wyldside/Aesop's. A third Aesop's might have helped, but I believe the consistency problem runs deeper.

Swiss:

1. [W] vs. Brennan (TWIY Grail): Seeing TWIY across the table was a pretty clear sign to be on the lookout for Grail. I don't recall much of what happened, the only grail I ever ran into was a Lancelot backed by Galahads. I do remember he had a blacklist defended by an Archer which really slowed me down. Close game that came down to persistent RnD access followed up by Hades Shard for the win.

2. [W] vs. David (HB:ETF): All I remember from this game is my opponent firing ABT 3 times (once with bifrost) and milling 7 of 9 cards with no Jackson in play. Game ends 7-5, turns out I have a really hard time against corps that just advance agendas behind ICE.

3. [L] vs. Jens (NEH Scorchy): A quick game, though not due to a flatline. 1x Clot with no tutors was no match for Astro train. We laughed about getting paired together again and set about finding some pizza.

4. [W] vs. Daniel (NEXT Design): This match was by far the most fun of the tournament. Both games were extremely close and a ton of fun for both me and my opponent. I wish I remembered the details better, but the final turn came down to him install-advancing the winning agenda and me on no money deja vu-installing two cache and firing the Hade's Shard for exactly the win (I only had enough creds for 1 NAPD). I think I ran my deck out completely and he had like 3 cards left. Truly a great game and a great match.

5. [W] vs. Avi (NEH Scorchy): Avi was a newer player, but nonetheless very skilled and very friendly. If there was ever a perfect Noise draw I had it this game. By turn three I think I had wyldside, Aesop, Chronotype, and 2 Daily Casts. I think I even managed to Imp a scorch out of his hand on turn 1. As good as my draw was I think Avi was getting flooded with agendas, but the wraparound on his HQ kept me from confirming this for the entirety of the game (ok, almost perfect draw). I manage to float around 20 creds for most of the game installing cache left, right, and center. I eventually parasite through the Data Raven on RnD making runs safely with 3x IHW in hand and a substantial credit lead. I eventually Hades Shard Archives for the win.

6. [L] vs. Joe (RP): I don't recall much except for digging for a long time to find Aesop. By the time I had established any presence Joe was on 4 points and intall-advance-advancing his way to victory. On my final turn I install 2 viruses and a Hades Shard, electing to pop it after the 4th advancement token and finding myself on 6 points as he scores TFP. I guess I'm just not that much of a luck-sack.

Top 8

1. [L] vs. Scott (HB:ETF): By this point in the tournament I was exhausted but very happy to have made the cut. Playing against spags was a lot of fun, even though he trounced me :P I remember spending a lot of clicks just drawing cards trying to find wyldside. He scored up to 5 safely behind a Turing/upgrade when I finally managed to gain some control. Atman on 4 gave me the key to HQ and Rnd each protected by a lone Eli. I scored up to 4 from single accesses/imps. He redoubled his defense and scored to 7 while I was still trying to assemble a rig. I wish I could have made spags work a little harder for this game, but my focus was beginning to unravel.

2. [L] vs. Joe (RP - Rematch): This game was even more frustrating than the last two. After the previous game spags and I discussed my runner list a bit and he asked how 2x Aesop was working out. I said it's been working out fine so far. It was not fine this game. This was the game I had to dig through almost all of my deck to find one, and it sucked. I also made the mistake of accessing NAPD with only 3 credits at one point. It only hurt more because I had the stimhack in hand.

I was disappointed to not play my corp in top 8, but c'est la vie! I was happy to be done playing, and still proud of my finish.

Thanks to all of my opponents for some great games, and thanks to I'm Board Games for hosting the event! (And thank you for taking the time to read this far!)